---
layout: post
permalink: release-4-2/
title: 'Rainmeter 4.2 Release'
---
<div class="release-notes">
<div class="description">
	<h1 class="text-center">Rainmeter 4.2 Release</h1>
	<hr>
	<p>There are a lot of new features and capabilities in the latest Rainmeter 4.2. You can safely install the new 4.2 <br>release version right over your existing Rainmeter 4.1 or any earlier installation, and nothing you have done will be lost or changed. There is never any need to uninstall any earlier version of Rainmeter to use the newest version.</p>
	<p><b>Note:</b> Rainmeter 4.2 will run on Microsoft Windows 7 through 10. Windows XP and Vista are not supported.</p>
</div>

<div class="changelog">

	<h2>Major additions and changes in Rainmeter 4.2</h2>

	<hr>
	<div class="feature">
		<h4>UsageMonitor Plugin</h4>
		<p class="text-muted"> Added a new UsageMonitor plugin to interact with the Windows Performance Monitor, which monitor various kinds of system metrics in different categories, and tracks their usage. This plugin will deprecate the existing AdvancedCPU and PerfMon plugins, and should be used in place of them going forward. Documentation for this new plugin is at <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/plugins/usagemonitor/">UsageMonitor Plugin</a>.</p>
	</div>

	<div class="feature">
		<h4>Bangs</h4>
		<p class="text-muted"> Added several new bangs to allow "disabling" and "enabling" mouse actions on meters or the skin background. Documentation at <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/bangs/#MouseAction">Mouse Action state bangs</a>.</p>
	</div>

	<div class="feature">
		<h4>@Vault Folder</h4>
		<p class="text-muted"> Added support for an @Vault folder. This is an automatic and handy place to store 32bit and 64bit versions of plugin .dll files you distribute with skins, as well as other resources. See <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/distributing-skins/vault-folder/">@Vault Folder</a> for details.</p>
	</div>

	<div class="feature">
		<h4>SysInfo Plugin</h4>
		<p class="text-muted"> Added a new <code>USER_LOGONTIME</code> SysInfoType value to the <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/plugins/sysinfo/#SysInfoType">SysInfo plugin</a>. This is a timestamp number (number of seconds since January 1, 1601) reflecting the date and time the current user account logged onto Windows. Use with a <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/measures/time/">Time measure</a> to get a formatted string of the date/time, or subtract from the current time and use with an <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/measures/uptime/">Uptime measure</a> to get a formatted string of the elapsed time.</p>
	</div>

	<div class="feature">
		<h4>Rainmeter.ini</h4>
		<p class="text-muted"> Changed the file encoding of Rainmeter.ini from ANSI to UTF-16 LE (Unicode). Existing installations will be converted if needed when Rainmeter is started or Layouts are loaded. Details and an important note about backwards compatibility are at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?p=149595#p149595">Change Announcements</a></p>
		<p class="text-muted"> Added the full path to the currently running skin .ini file to the hidden window "title" of the config window. This is in support of plugins that may be written to use SendMessage() to detect if a particular config is running, and if so, to use the window title to retrieve the "variant" name of the running skin. An example of this kind of plugin can be found at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=28720">ConfigActive</a>.</p>
	</div>

	<div class="feature">
		<h4>About Dialog</h4>
		<p class="text-muted"> Changed the About / Version dialog to add the version number for Windows 10 (e.g. 1709, 1803) and the language and language code number currently being used in both Rainmeter and Windows. (e.g. English (1033)) Changed the references to the various paths and the Rainmeter.ini file to be clickable links.</p>
		</ul>
	</div>

	<h2>Other enhancements and fixes in Rainmeter 4.2</h2>
	<hr>
	<div class="features-other">
		<p class="text-muted"> <b>InputText plugin:</b> Added support for <code>InputNumber</code> and <code>InputLimit</code> as inline <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/plugins/inputtext/#Command">command overrides</a> in the InputText plugin.</p>

		<p class="text-muted"> <b>FileView plugin:</b> Relative paths are now supported with the <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/plugins/fileview/#ContextMenu">ContextMenu command</a> in the FileView plugin.</p>
	</div>

	<div class="links">
		<h2>Version history and details</h2>
		<hr>
		<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
			<li style="margin-left: 1rem;">Detailed explanations of major changes at <a href="https://forum.rainmeter.net/viewforum.php?f=122">Change Announcements</a>.</li>
			<li style="margin-left: 1rem;">Additional details on bug fixes and other minor changes at <a href="https://docs.rainmeter.net/history">Version History</a>.</li>
			<li style="margin-left: 1rem;">Full history of all changes to the Rainmeter code at <a href="https://github.com/rainmeter/rainmeter/commits/master">Rainmeter GitHub</a>.</li>
		</ul>
	</div>
</div>
</div>
